If Jenny Lewis has learned anything from her high-profile friends and semi-frequent collaborators Conor Oberst and Ben Gibbard, it’s this: The bigger you get, the more people hate on you, so let the authenticity of the music be the final word. Nowhere is this lesson more obvious than on Lewis’s…
One of the quickest ways to break into the biz or revitalize a stagnant career is to modernize someone else’s hit song a decade or so after its release with a clever cover version. It worked wonders for Marilyn Manson and Alien Ant Farm — even Johnny Cash cashed in…
Vinnie Paz, Stoupe and DJ Kwestion have to be some of the hardest-working cats in indie/underground hip-hop. Although their group, Jedi Mind Tricks, has released only four albums in its ten-year existence, the three are the brains behind lauded projects from Outerspace and Army of the Pharaohs and had a…
It was inevitable that crunk would spawn its own subgenres, and you can go ahead and pencil in Atlanta’s Dem Franchize Boyz atop the nascent “snap music” movement. Their main competition is D4L, which proved that less really can be less on the ridiculously minimal hit “Laffy Taffy,” which taints…
In August 1883, Krakatau, south of Java, violently erupted, producing a cataclysmic sound — the loudest ever recorded by humans. Earlier this year, Shannon Saling, bass player and vocalist for punk-rock provocateurs the Swindlers, formed Krakatau with Bailey Cecil of Core of the Earth and former members of Black Lamb…
New York City beat bastards James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy just love wiping their french-fry greasy DFA fingers all over other people’s records. Their latest remix collection — with geeked-out takes on Tiga, N.E.R.D., Nine Inch Nails and many more — is a surprisingly chilled-out, completely addictive treat that should…
The techtonic plates continue to shift along Denver’s increasingly competitive concert scene. Although no official statement has been released, Chuck Morris will be vacating his current post at Live Nation to join his proteges, Don Strasburg and Brent Fedrizzi, at the new Denver outpost of Anschutz Entertainment Group. Morris, one…
The video for Band of Horses’ “Funeral” features scratchy black-and-white footage of a lonely, broken old man slowly drinking himself to death in a smoky beer-and-a-shot bar, his only friends the bottom of his mug, a jukebox and memories of a dead dog. Framing morose lyrics such as “I’m coming…
It’s been a while since I’ve been to a house show — since back when there was a Democrat in the White House and emo was all about sporting a pair of thick, black-plastic specs and a cardigan and sharing your innermost thoughts with strangers on LiveJournal rather than MySpace…
Motet drummer and principal composer Dave Watts might be among the most studied timekeepers on the planet. Given to using terms like “African diaspora” when describing his rhythmic influences, Watts isn’t simply smacking the cans in standard time, as evidenced by his musical output. Drawing upon a lifelong passion for…
Chris Ward is multi-faceted, to say the very least. Getting his start at Cartoon Network, Ward was among the team of weirdos that resurrected an obscure Hanna-Barbera cartoon titled Sealab 2020 and turned it into the more risqué Sealab 2021. During his stint with that show, Ward worked as an…
Boston’s Godsmack has a well-earned reputation for darkness. But prior to a show in Dallas, the outfit’s drummer, Shannon Larkin, sounds as cheerful as a member of Up With People. “I’m extremely grateful to be in this business, on this label, in this band — and just glad to be…
The music industry has a lot in common with the average automobile plant. Lots can go wrong, but when everything’s operating at peak efficiency, it’s still capable of turning out impressive products. Like, for instance, B’Day, a sleek new model that displays all the benefits of custom manufacture. Granted, Beyoncé…
Gnawing your way through a new Mars Volta record is always something of a chore at first. The band — anchored by instrumentalist/composer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and lyricist/vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala — turns out huge mind-fucks as songs, mixing prog-metal, psychedelia and swaggering Latin flavors into massive, album-long narratives whose intent is…
As more and more labels dust off long-gone, commercially failed but artistically significant bands, it’s refreshing to see Sub Pop fight the sad irony of post-mortem acclaim by anthologizing a band that’s alive and kicking hard with years of neglected gems under its belt. Oregon’s Dead Moon is a garage…
Towers of London would be the most original rock band to ever come out of England — if this was 1975. Sadly for Towers, it’s not. The London mates, with their ultra-party-coiffed manes, come off as third-generation wannabes so devoid of pure inspiration that even their influences look asinine. The…
At first blush, gogoLab seems like pure shtick — an opportunity for keyboardist Eric Moon, bassist Bijoux Barbosa and drummer Brian McRae to don suits, shades and skinny ties and live out their spy-music fantasies. Turns out, though, these guys are talented enough to transcend their own gimmickry. The disc’s…
Rockabilly is an especially specific genre. Despite technological advances in hair goop in the past fifty years or so, the style hasn’t deviated too much from slicked-up pompadours and thumping slap-bass lines (even psychobilly counterparts remain true to the general approach). Take stylized guitar riffs and bop ’em out with…
Danity Kane, Danity Kane (Bad Boy). The Diddy-assembled vocal quintet that emerged from the dopey yet addictive MTV series Making the Band 3 is custom-made for those who feel the Pussycat Dolls’ music is a bit too raw and spontaneous. “Show Stopper” and the rest of these vacuum-sealed ditties proudly…
Although these Brits have earned a footnote in pop-music annals, the reference pertains to someone else: Phil Spector. Several years back, the reclusive Wall of Sound architect was looking for a group to help him break a lengthy layoff, and he settled on Starsailor, a James Walsh-led combo with a…
Inspired by the 1982 cult film Wild Style, DJ Krush became one of Japan’s first turntablists. Equally adept at breakbeats, trip-hop, blissed-out electronic explorations and straightahead hip-hop, Krush has been a pioneering force in the DJ scene since his days with the Krush Posse, a crew hailed as one of…
American performance artist Chris Burden once noted that the dwindling fan base of most bands can be attributed to changing tastes or reactionary disinterest. Xiu Xiu, however, has had the unfortunate problem of often losing fans to suicide. (Oh, how very Goethe.) The San Jose-based act sits on a bummer…
